Lighter = Faster (RX-7 Build #2)

[magnumP5]

FFE trigger kit:

Turn signal and high beam indicators for the new display.

They're incandescent but at least they have the typical arrow and high beam shapes. I think they're aftermarket OEM parts for a Harley Davidson.

Two 2' x 4' sheets of 1/16" ABS for the door panels and a small 12" x 24" sheet of .040" aluminum to finish off the ducting.

 

[magnumP5]

Engine wiring harness is done sans ignition sub-harness. I still need to figure out where to mount the coils (arg). I really haven't been able to put any meaningful work into the car in almost two months. Right now I'm actively looking for someone to do my body and chassis work for me. I'm trying to avoid custom shops (the only shops who'd take the work) since I'm not looking for show car quality (and price). Immediate tasks are:

-Figure out coil mounting
-Finish radiator ducting
-Make door panels
-Make dash panel for the digital display
-Die/paint the carpet and headliner

 

[magnumP5]

Hey, I actually did something last night! I decided I needed to tackle some easy tasks to get my mind off the frustrating ones and rebuild some confidence...

I started working on the new door panels. I found some old foam poster board I had lying around and made templates from the old, busted panels. After a few test fits and I was satisfied I used the poster board as a template for the 1/16" ABS sheet I purchased a couple weeks ago. I managed to get the passenger side panel cut and initially fitted:

I need to cut a lot more holes for the mounting pounts and reinstall the tabs that'll hold it to the upper trim piece. Once that's all done I'm going to cover the entire thing with fabric. I may add a thin layer of foam underneath the fabric, if needed, to give it more thickness.

 

[eprx799]

you need to make the door panels out of carbon fiber. lighter= faster!

 

[magnumP5]

you need to make the door panels out of carbon fiber. lighter= faster!

Thought about it. I don't have a "clean" way to cut CF right now (5" cut-off wheel != clean). I used tin snips to cut the ABS and it worked out fine. It's obviously scuffed up in the picture above but I'm covering it anyway. I'd have to be much more careful with CF and cut it with something like a band saw. Not to mention I can't get 2' x 4' sheets of rigid CF through McMaster. A 12" x 24" rigid sheet of CF in the same thickness is 5X the cost!

 

[magnumP5]

I got the driver's side door panel cut. It's funny how things are easier the second time around. Now I need to cover them. I ordered some knock-off "Recaro-style 'pineapple' racing seat fabric" from Sickspeed on eBay to cover the panels. I'm not sure what the heck "pineapple" fabric means but from the pictures it looks to closely resemble the Airtex fabric on my OMP seat.

I also ordered a bunch of things: lots of OEM Mazda parts for the doors (black window cranks, inner/outer window weatherstripping), some red nylon straps for door pulls, a boring black delrin shift knob, and a 4 in. shifter extension.

I also finally sold the 2 last night. I ended up taking it to CarMax because it wasn't selling and the scam requests were getting annoying. In the end I got less than what I originally asked but still more than my minimum. At least I have an extra ~$3K to put toward the RX7 and ~$300/month less in car payments.

 

[magnumP5]

Still no pictures. I fail...

I had a good 2 hour discussion with a local custom body shop yesterday. The good news is it seems like they can and are willing to do everything I want. The bad news is the timing (late January/early February start) and I'm afraid of what the cost is going to be. I should know by Friday. This is what we discussed:

-Media blast the entire car
-Fix all rust and close all unwanted/unneeded holes
-Weld in support plates for the bolt-in roll bar
-Fix front collision damage (likely replace the entire radiator support)
-Roll/flare the rear fenders
-Install the side skirts, front fenders, front splitter (with Dzus fasteners) and hood
-Paint the whole thing and apply bed liner to the underside

We also considered some other things:
-Swap the stock hatch and glass window for fiberglass and lexan (~50 lb reduction)
-Full cage (I don't think I'm ready for that yet)

Apparently red, blue, and purpose are the most expensive colors so those are out. I still like orange but what I'm going to do in the meantime is get everything painted white. Down the road if I want to add accents or change the color I'll do vinyl. I'm pretty excited about this. My wife and wallet are not...

I decided I no longer needed side markers, high beams, or a horn so I cut all those from the wiring harnesses for another 1-2 lb reduction. I also prepped one of the carpet pieces for dying. Once the engine harness comes in I'm going to be fully focused on getting all the wiring sorted out.

 

[Lewis7789]

Can't go wrong with white. (I'm not racist) Looking forward to the progress too! Sounds like she might be ready for 2015 (gasp!)

 

[eprx799]

I would save time and money on the cage install and just have a full cage done and have the cage tied into the front and rear strut towers to stiffen the chassis.
If you install the bolt in cage and then do all your wiring and install the interior and then you decide to install a full cage you will have to strip that all out again to have a full cage done, and repaint the interior and reinstall the wiring and interior again. Also if your going to install lexan windows, cut out wiring ,etc. to save weight then don't install door cards, carpet, or insulation in that car that will also save weight. If you are interested in having a full cage done, there is a guy in Akron that been doing roll cages for about 25 years and does beautiful roll cages, I can get you his number if you are interest.

 

[magnumP5]

Can't go wrong with white. (I'm not racist) Looking forward to the progress too! Sounds like she might be ready for 2015 (gasp!)

Still hoping for 2015. Probably won't be ready until the Summer though.

I would save time and money on the cage install and just have a full cage done. if you install the bolt in cage and then do all your wiring and install the interior and then you decide to install a full cage you will have to strip that all out again to have a full cage done repaint the interior and reinstall the wiring and interior again. Also if your going to install lexan windows, cut out wiring ,etc. to save weight then don't install door cards, carpet, or insulation in that car that will also save weight.

I'm considering it. I'm just not sure this car will ever need a full cage. I cranked through some numbers and it looks like it'll land in TTB/PTB. It's unlikely to be competitive there so I may just use it for fun, running HPDE's as it's still not a full-fledged race car. I only mentioned the fiberglass/lexan hatch because I don't have a rear defroster or wiper so there's no need for the stock glass. The windshield and side windows will remain glass. I'm not chasing every pound yet - just removing/replacing what isn't needed anymore or what I can't use (due to the ECU). The carpet, door panels, etc, will still be there but any insulation behind them has been removed. The total carpet weighs 12 lb in its current state.

 

[magnumP5]

Fabric and shifter extension came in last night. Didn't get any pictures because my phone was dead. The shifter extension is perfect - the knob is actually going to be immediately to the right of my hand on the steering wheel. The combination of the original (very) short-throw shifter and the extension gives a very satisfying feel.

Nervously awaiting the quote from the body shop...

 

[magnumP5]

Picture time...

Got the door panels finished over the weekend. Fortunately everything turned out as good as I'd hoped!

I even had enough material left over to re-cover the headliner as well. This turned out better than painting ever would have.

Snapped a quick picture of the new shifter setup. 4" spacer with delrin knob.

The biggest news of the weekend was my harness came in.

Everything is labeled for easy reference.

31-pin bulkhead connector.

Separate fusebox with space for another relay and fuse in case I want to expand functionality later.

And connectors to mate the harness to my chassis and power harnesses and personalized wiring diagram.

This was so worth the $500. I haven't laid everything out yet but it looks like it'll fit just fine. The only thing the harness is missing is the ignition sub-harness, which will get made when I figure out where they're going.

Still no word from the body shop though...

 

[Lewis7789]

Those door cards look awesome and I love the pull tabs. Well done, sir!

 

[magnumP5]

Threw all the wiring back in the car. I think I remembered where most of it went. The main goal of the weekend was to check the fitment of the new harness. Everything looks good inside the car. The hardest part is going to be figuring out where to put the Haltech fuse box. The engine side is a different story:

Things are a little long on this side (better than short). The biggest offenders are the speed sensor and crank angle sensor wires. They need to be shortened quite a bit. There's a little excess slack in the TPS, water temperature, oil temperature, and oil pressure wires but that's going to be taken car of by taking some length out at the firewall.

The biggest bummer of the weekend was the crank angle sensor itself. I'm still not sure if I got the wrong kit (would be the 2nd time) or if it's the wrong sensor but I can't physically bolt the sensor to the bracket. The sensor hits the wheel and the mounting holes are misaligned.

Some concessions were needed. The two ports on the oil filter adapter caused one of the sensors was out of reach of the wiring harness. I considered taking oil pressure at the stock location but that still stretched the harness more than I wanted. So I broke out the drill and tap and made a new port (nearest the oil filler neck) and plugged the one in the back:

Finally, I decided on a location for the coils. Ultimately, I kept them in the same place as before. The leads are long, but I already had them and I really couldn't come up with a better location. It's closer to the wheel and fender than the previous iteration so I could fit cold air ducting to the intake should I ever go that route. If I ever do come up with a better location in the future I can always move them as the coils have their own subharness that can be removed from the main engine harness.

The engine side of the harness goes back to LMS today to be modified. I also ordered (what I hope is the last) $200 in wiring products to finish the chassis side of things. I need to order some more aluminum sheet to finish off the radiator ducts and make some blanks for the side mirrors. Got the quote for body work in on Friday as well. Ouch...

 

[hat1018]

Nice work Jon.

 

[Lewis7789]

I'm headed down to your place armed with tooth brushes, paper towels and PurplePower for that engine bay.

Looking good so far. Hopefully you'll get the wiring sorted soon enough.

 

[magnumP5]

I'm headed down to your place armed with tooth brushes, paper towels and PurplePower for that engine bay.

Looking good so far. Hopefully you'll get the wiring sorted soon enough.

LOL, don't bother. On the 31st it's going to the body shop. The first step is a full sand blast of the entire car. FWIW, Purple Power, Simple Green, etc. doesn't even begin to break that black stuff. The only successful means I've found are heat + scraping and gasoline + scrubbing. Sand blasting should make short work of it though.

I pretty much stopped taking pictures. I've ordered a bunch of raw material for various projects and a lot of wiring stuff. The engine wiring harness is getting revised to optimize fitment but the main thing is getting the car completely stripped down for body work. It's in a nearly complete state of disassembly right now.

I'm part of a development project for a COP (coil-on-plug) option for the AEM IGN-1A coils I have. Depending how long the body work takes I may be able to come up with a more elegant coil mounting scheme.

 

[roy obanion]

Subscribing..

 

[mymmeryloss]

Just found this. Got a lot of catching up to do on this!

 

[magnumP5]

Subscribing..

Just found this. Got a lot of catching up to do on this!

Not much to catch up on. Like others I've stopped really documenting this online. I don't do Twitter or Instagram and I'm getting too lazy to take pictures anyway. There's not much to look at right now anyway. Just an empty shell of a car waiting to be sent off for body work. There's plenty of small projects to work on in the meantime if I can ever get some of the other household projects out of the way. Kid #2 will be here in May so there's some stuff to take care of.